Camilla Jessen
The Trump administration’s push to reshape higher education is about more than “wokeness.”
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Behind the headlines about tariffs, border walls, and foreign policy, a different kind of campaign is quietly unfolding in the U.S.—a war over the soul of higher education.
As The Economist writes, “To overthrow the old order… you also have to take over and rebuild the institutions that control culture.”
In America, that means targeting its most influential universities.
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and other Ivy League institutions have become key targets of the MAGA movement.
What began as pushback against perceived liberal bias on campuses has evolved into a broad attempt to reshape—or even dismantle—the foundations of academic freedom and public research.
From Bipartisan Support to Political Battleground
For decades, there was broad political agreement in the U.S. that universities played a vital role in national progress.
The deal was simple: the government provides funding and scholarships, and in return, universities drive innovation, educate the next generation, and produce groundbreaking research.
That agreement, The Economist notes, “has been the source of military power, but also economic power… and made America a magnet for talented and ambitious people from around the world.”
Now, that understanding is being challenged.
The Trump administration has used federal grants and legal tools to penalize universities whose leadership has criticized the government or challenged MAGA priorities.
Princeton and Cornell, for instance, saw more than $1 billion in funding frozen after their presidents spoke out.
Foreign students who protested Israel’s actions in Gaza were arrested.
And Vice President J.D. Vance, himself a Yale graduate, has proposed raising taxes on wealthy university endowments from 1.4% to a staggering 35%.
Targeting the “Woke Mind Virus” or Consolidating Power?
The reasons behind these actions vary—from rooting out “wokeness” to fighting antisemitism—but the effect is the same: institutions are being pressured to fall in line.
Some have complied.
Harvard, for example, is changing leadership in its Middle Eastern studies department. Columbia University is already on its third president this year.
But behind these tactical moves lies a bigger strategy,
The Economist warns: to weaken the independence of universities and bring them under political control.
The Trump administration wants to destroy [the foundational agreement between universities and government],
What’s at Risk?
The potential consequences of this campaign go beyond academic debate.
American universities have been key to the country’s global leadership in technology, medicine, and defense.
Free research is one of the cornerstones of American freedom,” writes The Economist. “It’s one of the reasons why America has become the most innovative economy in the world… and why Russia and China have not.
If universities lose the ability to decide what they teach, who they hire, and what they research—because they fear losing government money—then that innovation edge could fade.
And the idea of free inquiry itself could erode.
For now, some institutions are trying to quietly ride out the political pressure.
But others are calling for a firmer stance, arguing that their vast financial resources—Harvard’s endowment alone rivals that of a small nation—should be used to defend academic independence.